After Run on the Bank, Bankers Running?

Well, we've heard a lot about the run on the banks in Second Life, but are the bankers running? "Nicholas is long gone," as I blogged below, but where are the rest of them?

Travis Ristow is still logging in and evidently manfully dealing with the shock of having to return deposits by January 22, the Lindens' deadline for closure of banks, even as his investments are losing. Eric Reuters has the story, and it's pretty accurate, except for his odd notion that people don't cash out Lindens, and keep them inworld because of "hefty fees" on the LindEx. Quite the contrary, most people cash out quickly in this unstable environment, and as I commented on the Reuters blog, they would only have large amounts of Lindens if they had the kind of business that had huge cash influx *and* the need for a big float. Casinos fit that description, but they're supposed to be gone. Rentals fit that description, but even leaving in the big float, I find you want to cash out, to pay tier especially. That's the problem with the notion of the 50,000 positive Linden flow concept -- it doesn't account for tier...

JT Financial's Arbitrage Wise appears to be still logging in and dealing with depositors and Xavier Mohr is still reporting on SL Reports. There's a whole description based on Lindsay Druart's narrative (not something I'd take to, er, the bank...) about an alleged lawsuit...or what seems to be more about an intensive session of legal advice.

Maelstrom Barphomet's rather complacent and arrogant musings can be pulled out of the Sutherland Dam Club meeting last Friday, and he IM'd me tonight to say he was "getting out of the market" because he was "tired" -- hopefully with everybody paid off. He added that Intlibber Brautigan was missing from the People list.

Intlibber missing from the People list?! Holy Ancapistan, Bat Man! I checked -- and it was true. His ACE exchange land was for sale, but for that funny figure of $999999999 like all the kids do in SL, which is just a cheap trick to get another ad (in the land list) for free -- that may mean nothing (does anyone know if it was always like that?) Everything seemed absolutely frozen in time at the heart of Ancapistan, Brautigan's empire -- I almost felt like if I stretched out my little avatar finger, I might find the kind of awful dust we found on everything the day after 9/11...

I have no idea what this means, because Intlibber's business alts are all in place. The only reason for a person to be gone from the People list is if they are banned, or if they did not manage to pay tier after the 7 day grace period. Not being able to pay tier seems like a strong possibility.

I don't know if Intlibber's disappearance is at all related to another piece of very sad gossip I got this evening which I'm trying to check: that a big player was paid off with a large amount to keep silent about LukeConnell Vandeverre...doing something, and I won't speculate what, as that's really above my pay grade as an independent blogger who isn't even "on" the bank story. Hope floats, well, like other stuff. LukeConnell is still in the People list.

Intlibber was making a brave showing at Robert Bloomfield's panel for Metanomics shown on SLCN.tv. I got the transcript today which they now provide and rather than really provide us with any numbers, he gave a blubbering account of having to take care of his aging and ill parents and needing to stay home at his keyboard to make money off SL. (The numbers that previously used to be posted on his profile about the amount of cash on hand and the amount of assets seems to have been removed.)

Sorry, but real-life sob stories are never recognized as the coin of the realm in SL, in my book. That is, any one of us could tell sob stories, and frankly I've seen people with very awful situations taking care of dying kids or permanently disabled children or husbands in Iraq making FAR less noise about it and soldiering on. Sorry, I'm unimpressed. I don't think it's appropriate to wield your RL woes as an argumentation method in any SL debate.

At the ACE (Ancapistan Capital Exchange), there are giant renditions of letters of incorporation in the state of Maryland, which doesn't tell you a single thing. Anybody of age with a proof of ID and a permanent address and X dollars and a few plans can file for incorporation in the state of Maryland, it's only first stage of a business. Show us the audited financial statement, please, on a large megaprim, thanks.

I have to say that while Intlibber has been a malicious pig to me and even repeatedly sicced the awful Woodbury goons on me, in his employ, I don't wish him ill. I don't wish him to fail, or to be booted from SL. He has worked hard, he has developed sims, he has applied creativity to his work, and you can only leave someone like that alone to live well and prosper, unless they harm others.

The anarcho-capitalist ideology is extreme and ominous, and I do debate that when the need arises.

Reading the banking panel transcript, I was glad to see several people I've never heard of, bank depositors I guess, simply put Duranske in his place. He was raging and ranting about usurious interest rates but as Intlibber explained to him in detail, nobody holds those loans for long, and what, Citibank is going to let you take out a loan to pay tier on a pet rock on the sky??? Please.

Incongruously (wow, they are getting to be such good masters of propaganda!), the Lindens have posted this amazing document called "Second Life Posts Solid Growth in Q4".

That's because they have Zee Linden and Meta Linden to work the numbers now, and bandy around nifty business terms like "Q4," with the original engineers might have thought was some sort of prim dimension or script command.

I totally agree with Zee that the SL economy is "resilient". It better be, with this amount of churn. And yes, there are lots of people coming in again, and they range from furries to norms, and even some CSI:NY viewers. I actually have seen just as many Americans as Europeans lately, but that's anecdotal.

But my God, you Lindens, posting a chart like that with all the bars going "up" like a Facebook widget invention, and not mentioning the banks???

What will that chart look like in a mere 10 days????

What part of the SL economy *does* the banks represent? I just cannot tell. I've tried and tried, and I just don't know. We can only judge by people's behaviour. Some people, as with casinos, may cash out or leave and dump land even if uninvolved in the latest regulated thing because they don't like the feeling that what they thought was free and easy has regulators in it.

I see some tenants moving to smaller lots -- that's RL recession worries. But I see some buying their own land (that could also be the recession, keeping people at home instead of buying expensive gasoline and shopping for more expensive products, and entertainment will do well in any recession). It's good that people are buying land, even if land is getting more costly as the Lindens haven't been printing whole sims lately, and are trying to unload 16 sims worth of abandoned mainland -- and doing a good job, I had to pay $12,000 for a 512 on a sim where I own the rest of the land, bleh -- and hey, did you see that the Braunworth 512 went for a whopping $70,000 Lindens???? I dropped out of that fascinating bid at about the $150 US mark -- it makes sense when you see its location : ).

Desmond Shang, in the comments to Zee's post, is right: the Lindens are doing a lot of things right lately. Keeping the LindEx stable (falling on their sword); not printing more land so that the prices can go up a bit and keep value; getting rid of casinos and banking schemes which seem destablizing to most people.

Why, they're even talking in office hours about *zoning* and finally talking about developing...are you sitting down??? a POLICY and not a TOOL to get rid of ad-farms. Hey, this is going to be good...if they do it. We first began having the discussion of just some kind of marginal civilizational zoning on the mainland 3 years ago, and it's been rough sledding.

I do want to see those premium account numbers. That means something. They've stopped publishing those in September.

Tyrian Camilo of SL Investors' Bank, the 23-year-old Finn described in my post about the first day of the announcements, is trying to cope, and hoping that someone will buy his debt -- he capped withdrawals but is still in trouble.

He had a useful thing to say on the forums:

"Banking Policy: Unfortunately, you just punished all the honest inworld banks, crooks had already ran with money. Best of all, it seems one person was given upfront warning, LukeConnell Vandeverre, and well, who doesn’t really have totally clean reputation, infact, many people thinks he is a crook. Whether he is a crook, or not, i don’t know, but i know his reputation. This was introduced slightly better, giving 2 weeks time to comply, unfortunately however, 2 weeks is not enough for acquiring any kind of RL regulation really, even LLC’s registration from start to finish (there’s more than the initial registration) can take easily more than 2 weeks. And still no clear extent of the policy! It seems it’s actually a complete interest ban, and so far, even RL contract personal loans has been told to be banned if delivery vehicle is L$."

I still don't think any of us, even these Lindens working 24/7 crunching this very dedicatedly, have a good way of measuring the productivity -- and well, meaning -- of Virtual Worlds.

The MMORPG approach that Clay Shirkey snarked at incessantly -- raw subscriber numbers -- will never make SL look good -- but then, did you realize it doesn't make There look good either? There doesn't publish its unique users or concurrency numbers -- I drilled on this a few times myself in person at these trade shows -- they don't reveal them. So please, let's put this in perspective.

But I maintain that a country the size of Netherlands Antilles (nearly) should be valued by a GNP, or possibly some figure made up of an algorithm consisting of user hours, unique log-ons, land mass increase, transactions (velocity and volume).

Land mass increase I insist on, even though that wouldn't work for real life, because in SL, it's directly correlating to LL's bottom line and to user confidence in buying new sims.

Oh, and before I get to work at that day job, let me leave you with this hilarious chatlog, from an employee of Intlibber's who apparently doesn't have enough adult supervision with the Friedmanite AWOL, an avatar with No Payment Info On File (!!) who is VP of Brautigan & Tuck Holdings and also VP of Global Crdt Svcs [sic]:

KITILA Cortes: Hello , i am sorry to bother i am contacting you on grounds of a mutual partnership from my company Global Production to help you exspand your buisness and profit further in the future of SL , we are a insured company and work with diverse companies acrosss SL to protect and serve our best to our clients i hope you would liked to know more , if so please feel free to respond saying yes or no, thank you for your time and reading this
Prokofy Neva: Piss off.
Prokofy Neva: Learn how to spell, too, idiot.
Prokofy Neva: This is what Intblubber has out as a VP now??? yeesh, desperate!
KITILA Cortes: i am sorry , im not dumb i have a injured hand from training
Prokofy Neva: oh bullshit
Prokofy Neva: you are stupid, it's clear
Prokofy Neva: move along son
Prokofy Neva: get a job, get a haircut, too
KITILA Cortes: Sir please dont disrespect
Prokofy Neva: disrespect, disrespect
Prokofy Neva: mute
KITILA Cortes: Lol well have a nice day and by the way i liked your housing you have a great company
-- End of Log ---
[1:28] KITILA Cortes: oh eah it's desperate that i am the 19yr old kid from the usa who created Secondlife's first credit card off 20usd . but yet im the one whos dumb, you have my repesct as a buisness man but you are very rude sir
[1:29] Prokofy Neva: I wouldn't give you two cents to rub together, dimwit, learn how to spell, bye, MUTE
[1:29] KITILA Cortes: Lol why am i dumb because i misspelled a couple words ?
[1:29] KITILA Cortes: or i felt like typing them diffrent
[1:30] KITILA Cortes: tell me Mr. bigshot
[1:30] KITILA Cortes: i dont need your money
[1:30] KITILA Cortes: i was offering my servie at no cost
[1:30] KITILA Cortes: meaning i would pay lol so if you need two cents i'll least give them to U
[1:31] KITILA Cortes: lol

Comments

[Prokofy Neva]

Intlibber Brautigan is back in the People list.

[Malignant Narcissist]

Intlibber's land (for as long as I've seen) has always been marked for sale at that price. It's always seemed sort of "frozen in time", too, though.

[Khamon]

"Oh Prokofy, You're Terrible" - Jarod Godel

The Cortes log is comedy aluminum.

[IntLibber Brautigan]

Lol, prok, mebbe you should focus more on your own land business? I hear you keep banning people who try to rent from you, without refunding. I guess thats one way to make a profit.

[Prokofy Neva]

Let's see, the only people I think I ban who "want to run from me" are your little griefer pals Tizzers Foxchase (gone from the People list, but respawning) and other miscreants from the Woodbury b/tards groups?

[sean percival]

oh prok! I see you in wired! talking about griefers of course.

your pic is sooo magritte too!

[Arthur Fermi]

I almost never cash out lindens, neither do most people i know. Now I'm lucky enough that I don't depended on my lindens for my tier, but it seems to me that people are buy lindens not selling.

My 1/50th of a buck.

Arthur Fermi

[aEoLuS Waves]

Most business owners I know (that don't have a very good paying job in RL) cash out weekly/monthly to have enough to pay the tier and "RL goodies" :-)

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, I haven't seen Wired, the interview was a few months ago. The reporter Julian Dibbell was the one interesetd in focusing on griefing, not me.

[sean percival]

It'll be on newstands next week, dont worry they were able to quote you on atleast one f bomb.

The pic is interesting, its of your back in your kitchen. They photoshopped bill cosby's head on yours for some reason... KIDDING!

snuck snuck

[Prokofy Neva]

Um, gosh, my opinion of Mahalo is growing, uh, every day due to the infantile postings of the person responsible for the Second Life page, sean Percival.

"Fuck, Julian, it's a denial-of-service attack," was approximately what I said, check the transcript, and I think when you see it in context, you can see why, after talking to Dibbell for 2 hours, he needed an f-bomb, he wasn't getting it. As most of you insolent assholes don't get it. I don't see why we need to turn the Internet over to you.

[sean percival]

No need to turn it over, the few online baby boomers will eventually pass, well take it over do something interesting with it.... then the myspace generation gets it to completely destroy it.

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, spoken like a true Marxist.

I was just reading the very same idea in Richard Pipe's "Communism":

"If one wonders how any government could inflict such devastation on its own people, it must be borne in mind that for Communist revolutionaries, in Russia and elsewhere, human beings such as they were represented a travesty of what humans could, should, and had to become. This view was embedded in Marxism. Marx once wrote that:

the present generation resembles the Jews whom Moses led through the wilderness. It must not only conquer a new world, it must also *perish* in order to make room for the people who are fir for the new world.'"